1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fastener device for strings and its object is to supply a simple fastening device easy to unfasten, any type of flexible filiform members, i.e. shoe laces, inserted through said device. Said device being also aimed for the most diverse applications.
Although the present invention was originally conceived particularly for laces for shoes, tennis shoes and other footwear, --being this the ambit of the preferred embodiment of said invention--it is actually apt to be employed on any structure or functional set requiring a positional securing fastener for cords, strands, bands and other through said device. Due to the abovementioned, all the foregoing in this specification related with the fastener applied for shoe laces shall be understood as extensive to any other compatible application with the constitutive and functional features of the new device.
2. Description of the Related Art
From very ancient corded footwear have constituted a practical and classic form of fastening of the user's foot. By means of these type of elements, the adaptation of footwear to the anatomy of the foot in the first place consists in the loosening of the tension of the cord in order to enlarge the opening of the footwear until it allows a comfortable introduction of the foot, then fastening the cordage with the desired tension of embrace by means of the traction of the corresponding ends of said cord.
It is clear that, after that embracing traction, the ends of each cord are relatively long, likely to be stepped on by the user with the consequent risk of falling. Due to this, in order to complete the adjustment the mentioned ends of the cords are usually made into a knot finishing off with a decorative topknot or bowknot.
The maintenance of the mentioned knot has always been a great problem as, the tension produced by the foot as well as landslides, area efforts and resulting flexion of the action of trekking, constitute the main features due to which the knots and bowknots end undone.
Similar things occur with the cords employed in ambits such as in nautics, camping and other applications that require alternative gathering and liberation adequate for the circumstances happening while sailing or pitching tents, being the case.
Hindrance is also present in packets, wrappings, bundles secured by means of bindings, as, if they are loose they tend to open; while, if they are too tightly fastened they must cut the cord or string employed for the fastening embrace. These problems, being evident do not need further explanations.
The fastening that constitutes the object of the present invention, has faced and obviated the outlined problems in a simple and efficient way, providing s positional fastener with guiding cord means that combine two opposed levers with different lengths, each ended in jaws and hooking delimiting between them one of the paths of the cord with an unidirectional fastening effect, and in which the greater lever is outdone and bent due to the traction of the end of the cord, thus forcing to displacement the smaller lever until the hooking in the same is produced. In such a way that, if the cord is interleaved among both levers, said cord results firmly secured by the mentioned hooking.
On the other hand, the smaller lever includes a holder at its end that enables the unhooking from the levers in an immediate way and, consequently, the unloosening of the cord with the additional particularity that this maneuver may be carried out employing only one hand, even in the case of using a dual set of fasteners, as is foreseen in the case of applying said device at the inlet and outlet of the cordage of the footwear.
Thus the invention results quite practical, easy to manage and low cost, bearing in mind that it can be structured in a single piece.
Furthermore, --keeping in mind that in applications such as footwear, the knot or bowknot constitutes a traditional decorative effect--the invention has foreseen that the end parts of the cord--as from the fastening points--may adhere as in a detachable way in the form of an apparent topknot or bowknot; thus the footwear shall acquire the traditional appearance, but with a permanent effective fastening that discards all possibilities of uncontrolled loosening or undone knots.
3. State of the Art
In order to solve the same problems, other means and devices of relative positional fastening of cords of any type, have been developed, particularly for shoelaces, the following being mentioned:
U.S. Pat. No. 1,363,393 (by Swanson), related to a fastener for shoe laces consisting on a disciodal support that, provided with a diametrical nerve of rugged surfaces, presents said nerve interleaved among resistance arms of two excentrical and shored levers, of the first type, that articulate on said support; the mentioned resistance arms end in rounded borders that, being projectable against the intermediate diametrical nerve, get near the same in a variable form defining different fastening levels in the paths of the cords to which they press one against the other and another rugged face of the same intermediate nerve.
Thus, it is about a different solution from the one of the present invention, said solution requires of various pieces, two of them consisting in two levers of equal length, type, and shape articulated in rotation axles on the same discoidal support. On the other hand it may be said that, actually, the Swanson patent describes a dual fastening device, as the levers work independently one from the other, as the fastening hold of the cord is not done among the levers, but between the lever and nerve.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,788,755 (by Kasai) that, essentially consists in a fixed body of lateral converging walls, among which a cylindrical fastener mounted in a rotative way with an axle is interleaved, also being displaceable on a track on a line coincident to the longitudinal geometrical axle passing between both fixed walls of the mentioned body; in such a way that between the periphery of the cylindrical fastener--that is rugged--and the fixed lateral walls of the body, each are conformed in paths of variable section according to the relative position occupied by its axle along the track. With which, as the cord tractions in the direction of the convergence of the lateral walls, said paths are strangled, securing the cords.
This embodiment does not employ levers, requires more than one piece and, at least for the unloosening, must be operated with both hands: one to hold the main body, or the cords in its case; and the other to displace the cylindrical fastening towards its unfastening position.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,506,417 (by Hara), consisting in an external long body affected by a transverse path of the cord and a lateral inlet in the form of a neckline; inside this long body there is a nucleus slidingly channeled, that, tensioned by an expansion spring, projects partially out of itself in the form of a pulsating head, and affects a pair of transversal holes which, --in the position of retraction inside the external body--result coincident with the mentioned path, in such a way that when the retractile pulsator of the nucleus is pressed, it is possible to freely insert one or two cords through the mentioned perforations, while, --when liberating the nucleus from the action of the spring--the relative displacements between paths forms a retentive mordant effect.
This embodiment differs from the one of the invention in that it does not employ levers, it works by means of an excentrical fastening and includes, at least three pieces that make the manufacturing and the assembling very expensive.
Similar to the Hara patent, fastenings of two eccentric rings, are known, which are aligned one to the other on different superposable planes and respectively joined to the opposite sides of an hexagonal deformable ring that acts as an elastic support which, normally, maintains the ring in an excentrical disposition (which is the fastening of the cord passing through its inside), while, pressing on both sides of the elastic support, the rings slide up to the coincidence of their perforations; thus producing the consequent liberating of the cord.
Due to the fact that this device has a similar principle than that of the Hara patent--except that it may be manufactured in one single piece and may be managed with one hand, the same mentioned differences may be applied respecting the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,570,015 (by Troxel), is a fastener for shoe laces consisting in pieces that, affected by V-shaped necklines, have a rotative mounting on base tracks; in such a way that the cord is deeply wedged and, as the piece rotated on its own axis, the fastening position is completed; while the relative disposition of each piece on its track is the one that confers the adjustment tension: the device also including an intermediate piece that is the one that holds the topknot.
Obviously, besides having an expensive structure, of a relatively complicated assembling, it cannot be maneuvered with one hand, it results antiaesthetic and has no levers.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,085,550 (by De Bri), is only a shoe lace holder (not a fastener), and that said hold is simply done by means of a clasp elastically tensed towards the shutting position, the jaws maintain the shoelaces tensed and previously interleaved among the same. This embodiment, as well as having an expensive an antiaesthetic construction (being done more to the measure of boots from the beginning of the century that what is proposed here), requires the use of both hands (one to open the clasp and the other to put and hold the cord until the clasping closing is done by the former).
U.S. Pat. No. 264,302 (by Joyce) is also an old version of the retention of the cord through an eyelet with a rolling axis and a V-shaped neckline to fasten the ends. Even nowadays it is being used, not to fasten shoelaces but to fix the ends of the strings in the assembling of bookbinded folios for files; but it does not have levers, it is not a fastener but a tying means, and constitutes a resource clearly different from that of the new invention.
Other fastening means are also known such as those based in forced wedgings and zigzag run, as the one of the deadeyes of sailing ships, the multiperforated wooden fasteners employed in the cords of tents, or the embodiment of the Argentine Patent N. 55.895; all these not having any constitutive nor functional relation with the described herein.
Consequently, before the state of the art, the invention offers sufficient constitutive and functional differences that guarantee its level of novelty; with the particularity of allowing a self-fastening effect of the inserted cord when it is one-way tractioned (in the fastening direction), although it may be liberated in a completely practical way by means of a simple pulsation or pressure with one hand on the pulsating holder provided to that effect.
Furthermore, the fact of being able to be structured in a metallic or plastic single piece, gives an additional advantage from which derives its low cost, thus helping the possibility of massive employment, without rising the price of the final application product.
The inventor has done tests of the invention by means of prototypes--the latter being produced in resin as stereolitographic samples--confirming its complete effectivity.
Due to all the abovementioned it may be easy to image the acceptability the new fastening means will have when being carried out, in any of the categories and destination given, as, due to the features that define it may be applied to the fastening of shoe laces as well as to cords and strap ends for vessels; tapes, cords and belts for rolling, elevating and folding curtains; cords to hold up tents and canopies; cords for adjusting of clothes or bags that employ cords for closing; fasteners for tensile cords, etc. The application of the present invention is also practical in sportive activities involving the use of cords such as mountaineering and, in general, any application requiring the unidirectional and automatic fastening of a cord, tape, end, wire or cable inserted through a device, with the possibility of a quick loosening of the same.